Continued advances in the field of consumer electronics and appliances have added a significant number of features to these devices which makes their operation simpler, while at the same time increasing their overall functionality. Most pieces of consumer electronics and appliances manufactured today include some sort of computer control within the unit itself. These computers control everything from automatically remembering leap year and adjusting the number of days in February, to controlling the on-screen menu display, picture in picture control, cook cycle time control, to name just a few. While these microprocessors are controlling ever increasing functionality of the consumer electronic devices and appliances into which they are incorporated, their capacity for further increases remains vast. Even with these advanced features and computer control, modern manufacturing techniques have allowed the cost of these devices to decrease since their initial introduction onto the market. However, even with such decreases, the cost of these electronic devices and appliances still remains fairly expensive.
One feature with which most consumers have become quite accustomed is the ability to remotely control their TV, stereo, VCR, camcorder, etc. While several items of consumer electronics offer this remote control feature in a line-of-sight fashion with a hand held remote controller, the desire to electrically remotely control other appliances in a non-line-of-sight fashion also exists.
In order to fulfill this desire to allow remote control of home appliances, electronic equipment, lighting, etc., several systems have been developed which allow control communications over a home's electrical wiring system. However, since most home appliances and electronic equipment do not include communications and control circuitry to allow reception of the electrical system communication control signals, many of the systems which have been developed utilize separate plug-in modules which interface between an appliance's electrical cord and the home electrical outlet. While there is currently still no universally accepted standard for this communication over a home's electrical wiring system, two protocols have emerged as the forerunners, and serve as a basis for many of the systems currently designed. The first such protocol is commercially known and marketed as the X-10 communications protocol. The second communications protocol which appears to be in wide use at this time is known as the consumer electronics bus protocol (CEBus). However, as mentioned above, neither one of these two has gained universal acceptance in the design of remotely controllable systems for home consumer appliances, lighting, etc. Indeed, several systems which claim to allow remote control of home appliances, lighting, etc., utilize their own communications protocol which does not adhere to either one of the two aforementioned communication protocol forerunners.
Exemplary systems which claim to allow remote control of home appliances, lighting, etc., may be found with reference to the following documents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,567,557; 5,051,720; 5,334,975; 5,400,246; 5,471,190; 5,491,463; 5,554,968; 5,570,085; 5,621,662; and European Patent Application No. 89 121025.4 bearing Publication No. 0 369 382 A2. The disclosure of each of these documents, particularly as they relate to communications protocols allowing remote communications over an electrical distribution system, are hereby incorporated by reference.
While each of the above-identified systems claim certain benefits for a remotely controllable system, none of the systems are able to distinguish individual appliances within a household, other than by their physical or programmed location within the household. Specifically, many of the above systems utilize separate control modules which are plugged into the house's electrical outlets, and may be themselves remotely controlled via communication received over the electrical wiring system. However, if one were to unplug a particular appliance from one of these modules and move it to a different physical location within the house, the remote control system has no way of knowing that this has taken place without manual user interaction. While this reprogramming may seem to be a minor problem in view of the infrequency with which most consumer electronics and appliances are actually moved within a household, in view of the fact that many people have trouble reprogramming their VCR clock, it is a problem to be avoided nonetheless.
The unacceptability of this problem may be best highlighted through an example. Assuming, without admitting, that a remotely controlled system were capable of disabling a device, such as a television, at a certain time, if a parent were to disable a television set located in a child's room after 8:00 PM, a child would only have to unplug the television set from the current electrical receptacle and replug the television set into a different electrical receptacle in order to defeat the system programming and allow continued television viewing after 8:00 PM. While the parent could conceivably disable all of the electrical outlets to the child's room, such is undesirable as this would prevent the child from using a night light, clock radio alarm, etc. in his room. While this may appear to be a simplistic example, parents with kids who own video games may well disagree.
An additional problem with electronic appliances exists mainly due to their expense and ease of portability. This problem is the ease with which electronic appliances are stolen from homes, warehouses, and during transit. Because these devices are so enjoyable to own, and yet are priced out of the reach of many citizens, a significant market for stolen electronic appliances exists. Their ease of portability and lack of security features and identification, as well as the relativity high probability that the recipient of the stolen merchandise will not be caught, or if so not prosecuted, only exacerbates this problem. Currently, most consumer electronics devices only carry a written serial number on the device to identify it in the event of a theft. However, since many individuals fail to record or register this serial number, attempts to recover merchandise once it has been stolen is nearly impossible.
A device which attempts to overcome this problem is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,021,779, issued to Bisak on Jun. 4, 1991 for a SECURITY DEVICE. The system contemplated by this patent utilizes a receiver-decoder which is adapted and arranged to allow the appliance to operate in its normal mode when the receiver-decoder receives a predetermined code carried via the electrical wiring system within the home. If this predetermined code is not received by the receiver-decoder, the appliance enters a security mode of operation. Various alternative security modes of operation are described in this patent including the use of an alarm within the device, trigger a transmitter device to sound an external alarm, or transmit a silent signal to the police department upon being plugged in to allow the apprehension of the thieves. The encoder-transmitter of this system is arranged to frequency or phase modulate a carrier signal with a binary digital code and transmit that signal over the electrical wiring system to the electronic appliance plugged into the wall socket of the household. Once a consumer has set a particular code and transmitted that code over the electrical system to the electronic appliance, that code is kept in memory and used to compare subsequent receptions to determine of the appliance is still connected within that consumer's household.
However, as with the above-described control systems, the system of the Bisak '779 patent does not allow for individual identification of electronic appliances coupled to the system. Nor does this system allow any type of control of the electronic devices coupled to the electrical system of house. Further, this security device operates on its own communications protocol operating at 260 kHz and transmitting a unique binary digital code which is suited only to the security feature.